90 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 418. 



offered, is sure to meet with favor as a fancy distinct variety of 

 the first class, it being a dainty pink with depth of darker color 

 at base of the petals. For a darker pink none seems to us more 

 pleasing than Mr. May's Lena Saling, inclining, as it does, to 

 the salmon. It is of great diameter, but not very deep. Peter 

 Fisher, of Ellis, Massachusetts, exhibited the greatest variety 

 of seedlings, and received honorable mention for Edith Foster, 

 a promising white. 



In spite of the numerous varieties of the Carnation, many of 

 which to the layman seem much alike, there is room for 

 others, for, after all, there are very few which, like William 

 Scott and Daybreak, will grow in every soil and for every one. 



Notes. 



Strawberries, from Florida, are selling at the reasonable rate 

 of fifty cents for a quart of well-grown fruit, and more deli- 

 cate strawberries from near Charleston, protected under glass 

 without any artificial heat, sold on Monday for $1.00 a box at 

 wholesale. No better oranges are ever offered here than some 

 of the last Jamaicas, now being sold at fifty to seventy-five 

 cents a dozen. The last of the Jamaica grape-fruits will soon 

 be followed by the earliest of this fruit from California. 



The Smooth Brome Grass, Bromus inermis, of south-eastern 

 Europe, is commended in a recent bulletin of the South Da- 

 kota Experiment Station as a valuable grass in that state, both 

 for permanent pastures and for meadows. Other grasses at 

 their best may give a better quality of hay, but none has been 

 tried there which yields as good a return one year with 

 another. All kinds of stock eat this Brome Grass readily, and 

 an aftermath springs up immediately after it is cut, so that it 

 makes good grazing for fall and early winter. It is hardy 

 against cold and has great drought-resisting powers and is one 

 of the very earliest grasses to start in the spring. 



Four species of Eucalyptus in New South Wales are called 

 Ironbark, the best of which is the so-called White or Gray 

 Ironbark, E. paniculata. This wood is very heavy and hard ; 

 its most characteristic property, however, is a certain gum- 

 miness ; when planed it shows more or less parallel lines of 

 close fibre which resemble horn, and between these in the 

 parts where the grain is more open are shallow pits filled with 

 a resinous substance. The best Gray Ironbark is very pale, 

 and can hardly be excelled by any wood for its combined 

 strength and durability. Railway ties made of this wood, 

 which have borne the heaviest traffic of the main line near 

 Sydney for twenty-five years, are said to ,be as sound as they 

 were when they were laid. 



No insects are more dreaded by the general farmer than 

 wire-worms, and we are glad that Mr. M. V. Slingerland has 

 republished the essential parts of a bulletin, now out of print, 

 which gave a detailed account of three years of experiments 

 with these pests. A few recent observations are embodied in 

 this new bulletin, so that the information is brought up to date. 

 The practical summary of the whole is that there is no reliable 

 way of protecting seed by poison or of destroying immature 

 wire-worms in the soil. But the life-history of these worms 

 shows that they live for three years at least in the larval state, 

 and when fully grown they change to soft white pupae in July, 

 and the insect assumes its adult form in August. Singularly 

 enough, the insect remains in the cell until the following April 

 or May — that is, nearly an entire year — and they perish when- 

 ever the soil is disturbed so as to break these earthen cells. 

 Of course, this indicates that if infested fields are plowed after 

 the 20th of July, thoroughly pulverized and kept stirred up, 

 many of these cells will be broken and the tender beetles de- 

 stroyed. Wheat or rye may be sown after this cultivation. 

 Farmers who practice a short rotation of crops and fall plow- 

 ing will not be troubled seriously with wire-worms. 



The windows of the flower shops have a suggestion of the 

 Lenten season in their less rich and profuse dressing with sim- 

 ple blossoms for home use, instead of the more brilliant and 

 gay flowers used for public social functions. The one striking 

 decoration in the up-town Broadway establishments early this 

 week was the large section of a tree, bare and wintry-looking, 

 draped with Florida moss, the rich chrome and greenish gray 

 of bark and moss, enlivened by luxuriant long sprays of Bou- 

 gainvillea, all illuminated by tiny electric lights. This particu- 

 lar window held, with other flowers, a varied collection of 

 choice Orchids, but, as a rule, the kinds of flowers which ap- 

 peared most abundantly suggested the garden and meadow 

 and woodland rather than the greenhouse and conservatory. 

 Tulips of various colors and narcissus of many forms were 



most plentiful and sold for $1.00 a dozen. Roman hyacinths 

 were among the most popular flowers. Dutch hyacinths 

 showed the effect of the season in the unprofitable price 

 of fifty cents a dozen, and freesias were plentiful at thirty- 

 five cents a dozen. Four or five branches of lilacs, 

 each carrying two panicles, cost $1.50, and a tight little 

 nosegay of large single California violets the same price. A 

 bunch of forget-me-nots, the winning little flowers peeping 

 from luxuriant stems and foliage, could be had for fifty to 

 seventy-five cents, and a dozen stalks of lily-of-lhe-valley 

 brought but seventy-five cents. 



Mr. B. E. Fernow, in an article in The Independent, to show 

 that permanently good roads are an important element in any 

 rational system of forestry, cites the example of the little city 

 of Goslar, in the Harz Mountains, of Germany. This old town 

 owns a forest of 7,500 acres, which the citizens treasure as one 

 of their best investments, because it not only furnishes them 

 outing grounds and good sport in the way of hunting, but with 

 a sure and continuously increasing revenue. Under conserva- 

 tive management the annual cut is 350,000 cubic feet of wood, 

 and the net income from the sale is, in round numbers, $25,000 

 a year, or $3.50 an acre a year, which is a good return from 

 soil unfit for agriculture. Formerly the district was without 

 good roads, but in 1875 'he forest manager persuaded the city 

 fathers to appropriate enough money to construct a first class 

 road system, which was gradually completed. In 1891, $25,000 

 had been spent on roads, and 141 miles of these roads were in 

 good order. The manager kept an account of the influence of 

 this improvement on the profits and cost of his forestry opera- 

 tions, and he was able to show that the annual cost of logging 

 had been reduced by $2,450, the cost of hauling by $2,520, and 

 the result of the sales due to the fact that much formerly un- 

 salable material could now be disposed of and all could be 

 transported more conveniently was increased by $3,255, be- 

 ing a net increase of $8,255, or nearly thirty-three per cent, 

 of the amount invested in road improvements. On one road 

 which was macadamized and maintained for a year at a cost of 

 $7,440 an instructive comparison was made between the cost 

 of hauling 470,000 cubic teet of wood over the old and over 

 the new roads. On the old road 4,273 loads were required of 

 no cubic feet each, and costing $3.60, or amounting in total to 

 $15,282.80. On the new road the same quantity was moved in 

 2,652 loads of 177 cubic feet each, and the cost, at the same 

 price a load, was $9,547.20, which means that the saving in 

 haulage alone was $5,735, or seventy-five per cent, of the cost 

 of the road in one year. 



Among many sorts of fresh vegetables now in the regular 

 stock of first-class dealers is asparagus from Missouri, which 

 costs forty cents for six long white shoots, while the best from 

 South Carolina costs $2.75 for a generous-sized bunch, and a 

 dozen long green stalks from hot-houses in Illinois bring 

 $1.10 Cauliflower is coming from near-by hot-houses, Florida 

 and France, and costs fifteen to fifty cents a head. New peas, 

 from Florida, the pods small, but well filled, cost ninety cents 

 a half-peck, and well-grown string-beans from the sftuth com- 

 mand thirty cents a quart. Okra, from Cuba, costs ten cents a 

 dozen, and egg-plants, from Florida, bring twenty-five to thirty- 

 five cents each. New beets come from Florida and Bermuda, 

 a half-dozen bunched with the tops costing ten cents, and loose 

 ones fifteen cents a quart. Kohl-rabi comes from the same 

 localities, and cost fifteen cents for three. Tomatoes, from 

 Florida, firm and well ripened, bring twenty-fivecentsapound, 

 the hot-house product from Pennsylvania costing forty cents. 

 Tender radishes from near-by hot-houses may be had for 

 seven cents a bunch, and rhubarb, grown under glass 

 on Long Island, for ten cents. The supply of celery is 

 partly drawn from Florida. Rochester furnishes some which 

 is better blanched than that from the south and of 

 sweeter flavor, while that from California is entirely white 

 and brings seventy-five cents to $1.50 for a dozen stalks. 

 New cabbage, from Florida, is not yet plentiful and costs 

 twenty cents a head, that from Germany bringing half this 

 price. Parsley comes mainly from Bermuda at this season. 

 Dandelion, from Boston and near-by hot-houses, costs twenty- 

 five cents a quart ; Romaine lettuce, from Bermuda, fifteen 

 cents a head ; hot-house lettuce, from Boston, ten to fifteen 

 cents, and larger heads, from Florida, ten to twenty cents each. 

 Heads of chicory, with blanched centres, and the broader- 

 leaved Escarolle cost fifteen cents each, while importations 

 from France, the large heads fresh as though just gathered, 

 command twenty-five cents. Mushrooms bring ninety cents 

 a pound. Hot-house carrots cost five cents a bunch, and those 

 from Bermuda seven to ten cents, and hot-house cucumbers 

 from Boston are a luxury at thirty to thirty-five cents apiece. 



